We Are
by anticute
Summary: Home sweet home, as Spartoi returns from the grueling mission in the Book of Eibon. Mainly Soul/Maka, but in general - more a groupfic.


and so here is some hurt/comfort coming everyone's way. it's a cliche situation, BUT IT NEEDS WRITING.

**WE ARE**  
>pseudonymosity  
><em>Home sweet home, as Spartoi returns from the grueling mission in the Book of Eibon.<em>

* * *

><p>"Ugh. This is going to be hell to wash," Maka mutters as she peels off her gloves, dropping them carelessly - tiredly - somewhere to her side. She waves her hands in the air (though it ends up being more of the weak flopping sort) to dry off the sweat latched to the insides of her fingers. After some stretching and bending of her wrists to loosen the joints, she works at the buttons of her coat. She grimaces at the hard tangles of tight muscles as she stretches them in removal of said coat, struggling to slip out of one sleeve. This particular level of discomfort and ache is new to her, as are the sounds of stifled whimpers with each small action. Every piercing movement just calls for more harsher and harsher breaths, as she tries to ignore the entirety of her nervous system. She's been holding back all the messages from her body for so long, though, that she doesn't have much energy or restraint left. Her other concern is the warm, tingling sensation of cuts reopening themselves and she's just dreading the additional blood on stark white.<p>

Cool hands are a reprieve in more ways than one. Her internal temperature is at its highest and she's just frozen in this position because she just can't move.

"You're in no condition to move, Maka," Blair coos softly, her own movements swift, to help her shift out of her layers, "let Bu-tan help."

"Thank you," Maka breathes shakily, her joints just _vibrating_ with a distinct yet vague numbness, "Where is everyone?"

"Downstairs," Blair replies with a slight hum, "Stein wants some of the group to stay here instead. It's better than making the trip to their own places."

"Good," Maka says with a moan as Blair pulls on her most aggravated arm in a particular way, only to wave a hand for her to continue when Blair is alarmed, "there's more than enough room for everyone here."

"Sorry," the woman whispers as the girl presses her face hard against her shouder in a muffled grimace, "just a little more, Maka. Just a little more."

* * *

><p>"Hey."<p>

Maka opens her eyes tiredly, to see Soul leaning against her doorjamb. If she was more observant (never mind the fact that one of her eyes wasn't exactly functioning 100%), she would notice that his dominant arm is behind him rather defensively.

The strain of it, rather than just letting it hang at his side, is a bit much. But it's not cool to look wounded in front of people, when this particular group of people are far more injured than he is. Maka, of course, included.

"Hey," she says, brushing away a stray hair away from her eyes with a distinctive, oddly curved - almost _broken_ from the looks of it - finger.

He changes legs against the door, an indication he's placing his weight too much on the wrong leg. She catches _that_ easily.

"You haven't changed," she observes.

She's in her most loose pajamas of the most softest material. Her sense of touch after a particularly long haul is heightened and intensified. She's aware of too much. Everything in the entirety of her world feels...feels too gritty - like salt, pepper, chunks of rock sugar - and it's too much for her haphazard nerves. She needs plush, cushions, comfortable, to ground her. She needs something that makes her feel safe.

She presses the stuffed rabbit given to her by Mama and Papa closer to her side, stroking its rather large foot (disproportional to the rest of its body - that's why three-year-old Maka wanted it) with that semi-broken finger of hers.

"We didn't do laundry before we left," he says with a shrug.

"You mean _you_ didn't do laundry," Maka makes an effort to roll her eyes, but can't. Instead, she feels something below her - somewhere on her calf, a muscle, roll in some sort of delayed spasm from all the exertion.

"Alright. Yeah. _I_ didn't do laundry, so I don't have an extra pair of clothes. Your dad and Hakase are coming over, to bring me some clean clothes. And probably to check on us. Nygus-sensei wants to do a physical on all of us, once Kidd comes back from Gallows Mansion and seeing Shinigami-sama."

"Great. We all need it," she says and releases a deep sigh. And that movement makes her particularly dread the soreness she will undoubtedly experience in the morning, of her stomach and abdomen. Her only comfort is that the others will feel similarly, so at least when she complains - she won't be alone.

"You should sleep," he gives a look to her current position: pillows propped up against the headboard for her to lean again as she sits up in bed, down blanket draped and tucked comfortably. In her slight turn towards him, her flushed cheek is pressed against her shoulder and loose blonde hair. She needs a hair-cut soon, whenever Liz is free.

"_You_ should sleep," she notes with blurred vision, how he keeps shifting feet and there's something with his hand.

"Guess we're too wired to sleep, huh? Black*Star wants to play some basketball, the bastard, but I know he's bluffing. He's just as tired as we are."

Maka chuckles, ignoring the sensations of pain while doing so, "Poor Tsubaki."

"Hey, so it turns out she was the last one to turn back."

Her eyes snap open - alert, but even then a dull alertness in tepid green - in surprise, "Really? Poor Tsubaki!"

"More like, poor Black*Star. They sleep in the same room, you know."

"Poor her," Maka mumbles, slumping against the headboard even more heavily - yet not quite falling asleep.

"I think she'll be okay," he murmurs, as he makes a stumble into her room, pulling a chair to sit. His sensitivity to touch is heightened, himself, as he settles into place. The wood is hard and he feels stiff just sitting there. But he welcomes such intense sensations. It grounds him.

He leans against the back of the chair. His spine and exhausted shoulders welcome the rigidness, pressing eagerly against the chair's curvatures. He stretches out his jelly legs on her bed and tries folding his arms across his chest, but can't. Instead, he lets his most exhausted and wounded arm to just lay across his lap.

"Laundry is going to be a bitch. The blood on our uniforms alone."

"I _know,"_ she complains, "why did we choose white? Who chose white?"

"You're the one who wanted to be an angel."

"Shut it."

"Stein-hakase was the one who made them, you know. We can blame him."

"Mm," Maka hums, just nuzzling her cheek against her shoulder some more. In approvement or disapproval, it's not clear.

"Blair?"

"Out. Getting stuff. She volunteered," her voice lowers.

"Sweet."

And before the both of them fall asleep, they both can hear him saying:

"Damn, we were all really cool."

And she corrects him:

"We _are."_

* * *

><p>I WANTED MORE GROUPFIC. BUT THE MUSE SUPPLIED NOTHING.<p> 


End file.
